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A leading figure in eastern Pennsylvania, Melville Stark was a plein-air painter and teacher who, with his good friend,
Walter Baum, was devoted to enriching the cultural life of the Allentown area. He was also a key painter at the artists
colony in Rockport, Massachusetts and in his later years, painted at Longboat Key Art Center in Florida.
He taught at the Kline-Baum Art School, and Cedar Crest and Muhlenberg Colleges in Allentown, and was committed
to the tradition of impressionist landscape painting.
He was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree from Stroudsburg State College in Physical Education,
but he had already started painting and subsequently abandoned Physical Education. He later studied art at the
University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, and the Philadelphia Museum School. Major influences on him were
landscape painters Cullen Yates, Walter Baum, and Anthony Thieme. He studied privately with Yates in New York, and
Yates encouraged Stark to go to Paris, which he did but hung around the cafes with artists rather than attending any
academy.
In 1926, he returned to Allentown where he came into contact with Baum with whom he studied art and then ended
up being a teacher at the Baum School of Art.
He married Ann Gomery with whom he had two children, and they moved into a farmhouse in Zionsville near
Allentown. In addition to having an art career, he was an active promoter of the Allentown Art Museum, which he
served as both trustee and director. Melville Stark's paintings are highly sought after and are in many national and
international collections and museums, he is a well listed and important American artist.
Listed: AskArt, Davenports, FindArtInfo, ArtNet, ArtFact, ArtPrice
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MELVILLE F. STARK
(1903 - 1987)
"COUNTRY ROAD IN EARLY FALL"
Oil on Linen Canvas
Artwork: 16" x 20"
Framed: 20" x 24"
$2600
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